Cosplay
Cosplay, or cosplaying, involves the art of making costumes and dressing up as a character, whether it be an existing character or one you've created yourself.
Cosplay conventions are held all over the world at comic cons and many other events. Costume making and tailoring are two hobbies I very much enjoy, and I've made costumes both for myself and numerous clients.
I began costume-making, or cosplaying, early in 2014 when I had an idea for a music video I wanted to make based on the Two Steps From Hell track "Archangel." I never managed to actually film the video, but it would have involved a warrior hero who takes on a horde of enemies to avenge his dead wife. It was really cool, I planned it all out and even went location scouting and anything. But halfway through making the costumes for the video, I entered a cosplay competition called EuroCosplay at ComicDom, a yearly comic con event held mid-April in Athens, Greece. Having recently finished playing Assassin’s Creed, I decided I would adapt the hero costume I had made for the music video and try to get it as close to Ezio’s outfit as I could in the two weeks I had until the competition (it was rather last-minute).
This was when I first got serious about the possibility of costume-making and the many incredible things you could and directions in which you could go. I decided I wanted to make my costume as realistic as possible, so I went downtown and bought some leather and lovely cotton/polyester fabrics and began working. I found a leather shop as well, where they made leather bags; the artist there was kind enough to let me use his tools and give me some basic tips on how to start working with leather. Eventually, I bought my own tools and built a workshop in my room.
I completed the costume in the nick of time and managed to win the national cosplay competition so, as the representative for Greece in the EuroCosplay championships, they sent me to London to participate. I had half a year till the EuroCosplay competition would be held, so I decided to make the Ezio costume from scratch, and this time make it as accurate as I possibly could. I spent the entire summer working on it, learning incredible new techniques and developing my skills as a tailor, leatherworker, and prop-maker. I had a fantastic time at the EuroCosplay championships and even managed to place 8th out of 42 people, which was an incredible accomplishment for me, especially with that costume being only the second costume I ever made on my own.
Since then I’ve continued to develop my skills and expand my business to include making costumes and leatherwork for many other people. I hope to continue working on cosplay and tailoring and improving my skills all the more.
If you have any questions about how I made anything you can always drop me a message on my Facebook page! (facebook.com/thanatosindustries)